Posted
by
Zonk
on Friday April 21, 2006 @04:41PM
from the who's-shocked-raise-your-hand dept.

In unsurprising news, Gamasutra reports that Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft all have pre-E3 events planned. From the article: "These conferences, which taken place during the two days preceding the three-day expo, have historically laid the groundwork for the entire week's events, revealing key information about the company's plans for the next year. 2005's press conferences revealed many initial details about the upcoming Revolution and PlayStation 3 consoles, as well as the Xbox 360 which launched later that year."

* Big three Allies of World War II
* Big three leaders of the Allies during World War II: Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin
* Big three conferences of World War II: Big 3 Conferences
* Big three Powers after World War II: United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union
* Big three European economies: Germany, France, United Kingdom
* Big three American automakers: Ford, General Motors, DaimlerChrysler
* Big three Japanese automakers: Toyota, Honda, Nissan
* Big three American broadcasting networks: CBS, NBC, ABC (see Big Media) -- and their flagship
newscasts, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, ABC World News Tonight
* Big three beer brewers: Anheuser-Busch, Coors and SABMiller
* Big three American air transport companies (current): American Airlines, United Air Lines, Delta Air Lines
* Big three Canadian Banks (formerly): Bank of Montreal, Royal Bank of Canada, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce
* The Big Three, an athletic league composed of Ivy League (US) universities Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. A reference to Harvard, Yale and Princeton based on their academic reputation, iconic status and membership in the Big Three athletic league.
o Many U.S. states have their local list of "Big Three universities"
* Big three defensive line of the Montreal Canadiens in the 1970s: Serge Savard, Guy Lapointe, Larry Robinson
* Big three frontline of the Boston Celtics from 1980 to 1992: Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish
* Big three offensive stars of the Dallas Cowboys in the 1990s: Troy Aikman, Michael Irvin, Emmitt Smith
* Big three professional sports leagues: NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball.
* Big three video gaming companies: Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony
* Big three science fiction writers: Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke
* Big three credit reporting agencies: Equifax, Experian, TransUnion
* Big Three U.S. cities (by population): New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago
* Big three Canadian cities: Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal
* Big three (also principal, most popular) members of DC Comics' Justice League of America (JLA): Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman
* Big three professional wrestling promotions of the 1990s in North America: World Wrestling Federation, World Championship Wrestling, Extreme Championship Wrestling
* Big three technology companies of India: Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro
* Big three NBA Players: Tracy McGrady, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett (as advertised by adidas)

How about NBC, ABC and CBS. That's the place where I've more commonly heard of "the big three" up until a couple years ago when Fox started climbing in the ratings (largely thanks to American Idol) and NBC plummetted to fourth place.

...to the point that I don't even see why we have a news story. What's next? "Nintendo thinks that fun games are useful". "Microsoft thought it would help to get a head start". "The Sky is blue, but only if you write your game that way".

To counter this non-news news, Nintendo fanobys (especially those eager for the Revolution) might want to check out AOL's sweepstakes page [aol.com]. A contest, starting today and ending on the 28th, gives one lucky winner a three day visit to CA, passes to E3, and to be the first commoner to play the actual Revolution.

Did I mention you'd play it in front of an audience of thousands? Unfortunatly, only one entry per person.:(

This is news in that MS is playing the predictable card once again. At last year's E3, there was decent information on the 360, all running real-time (if unimrpessive) demos and a bunch of info on Live. Well the next day, Sony rolled out the CG-fest and didn't even address it, letting the fanboys jump to as many conclusions as they possibly could (like that Spring 2006 was the US release date too and everything they saw was real time).

So what does MS do this time? They schedule their conference at the lat

Hellgate: London is being created by a group of Blizzard employees who left the company to start their own. What they do has no effect on what Blizzard will do. Furthermore, there is a rumor that Blizzard is making a Diablo 3 concerning heaven vs hell; the rumor sounds like it might be authentic, but we can't be too sure. I'm personally hoping that they release starcraft 2 the RTS, since there are so few quality RTS games out there.:(

Its not matter of better performance or speed.Its the spirit of game.Starcraft is based on such interactions that make it awkward to operate in 3D.The surrent system is perfect in '98 graphics.Replicating this at 3D is unlikely and wasteful of resources.Its the Gameplay Mechanics needs fixingUMS cannot be designed efficiently,maphacks and crashes,memory/sprite limits,Each game has 5sec delay before start.Lag screen cannot be turned off without hacks.Hacks aren't fixed in multiplayer.A bunch of people who h

I think Blizzard is going to continue to roll around in the great big piles-o-cash they are making off of WoW. Why spend years working on a single player or normal multi-player game, when you could put all your efforts into growing one of the biggest MMOGs of all time?

WoW has hit a mainstream market. Every Starbucks I enter has somebody playing WoW in it. NPR has had at least 3 reports on it in the last six months. Any non-MMOG that Blizzard does now will look small in comparison.

Don't get me wrong, but where's this leading? Next year, one of them will have the bright idea to start a week before the expo, to get more of a "headstart" to the competetors. After a few years, that pre-expo party will start a good half year before the actual expo, and when the E3 finally opens nobody cares about it anymore 'cause everything has been said and done.